


Alone with your thoughts

by CaptainCrusher



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Dreams and thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 22:54:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7126585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainCrusher/pseuds/CaptainCrusher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom Paris thinks about his feelings towards B'Elanna and Harry. Takes place after The Chute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alone with your thoughts

Tom swiveled around in his chair. The shuttle was on autopilot now, orbiting a nameless L class planet. He had felt a sense of relief when the Captain had given him this survey assignment. Now there would be nothing to do for hours, nothing but the computer keeping him company. The sense of relief had since turned into restlessness.  
Voyager had felt cramped since returning from his ordeal in the Akritirian prison. Everywhere he looked, there was Harry. They had avoided each other, at least Tom had tried to avoid him, but it didn’t seem to work. It was like he couldn’t escape him, even when he wasn’t there. If wasn’t Harry himself walking down a corridor, or sitting in the mess hall, it was something he left at Tom’s quarters. Or it was just that feeling in the pit of Tom’s stomach that he knew was about Harry.  
At first he had tried to distract himself. Fun and games. Hijinks. Pretending like there was nothing off. But there was nowhere to hide on Voyager. Not even from yourself.  
B’Elanna somehow saw right through him. Right before he left they had had one of those rare, beautiful moments between two people where everything seemed to be just right. They sat together in the mess hall, after his shift and before hers. There was no one around. Even Neelix had gone, with a promise that they would check in on his overnight stew. The only sound was from the mystery meat bubbling and steaming.  
B’Elanna was deep into explaining an engineering problem. Something with the deflectors. For the life of him he later couldn’t remember. He could just see how her eyes light up. She waved emphatically in the air.  
He interrupted her rant. He asked her out. In that tone of half joke, half seriousness.  
B’Elanna stopped. She looked too serious, too somber. Like he had said too much.  
\- Is this really the time for that? She asked.  
\- What do you mean? Its a great time! The stars are just right…  
\- No. I mean, is this what you want?  
With some effort Tom pretended to look confused and smiled again.  
\- I wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t what I wanted, he said.  
\- You can’t fool me with that, Tom, she said.  
He didn’t know what to say. Obviously taking his silence as a form of an answer, B’Elanna stood up. She looked like she was about to go, but she turned around and looked at him. As he sat there, still utterly confused, in the sofa.  
\- Figure out what you want, she said and walked away. Then we can talk.  
It was the last thing she had said to him before he left.  
It was still two days left in the shuttle.  
\- What should I do? Tom asked out into thin air.  
\- Please restate command.  
\- Never mind, Tom sighed. You can’t help me.  
He leaned back and rest his head on the support. B’Elanna was right. Of course she was. He hadn’t been fair to her. That much he had figured out the first day out here. He wouldn’t have admitted it at their awkward conversation in the mess hall, but he had known already when the words came out that he shouldn’t have asked her. Not then.  
B’Elanna was like an exciting mystery. Tom wanted to discover her. He wanted to know how to make her as happy as she had been in the mess hall before he ruined it. He wanted to trace the lines of her forehead ridges with his finger as she crawled into his arms.  
He leaned forward and checked the readings taken from the planet. Far below him the atmosphere shimmered in reds and blues, with heavy acid clouds covering the northern continents. The eye of a storm, probably centuries old, slowly passed in view of the shuttle.  
The image of Harry came into his mind. Not just the Harry he had last seen on Voyager. But the Harry that had been trapped in that hellhole with him. His cheeks covered in dirt, his eyes filled with rage and that horrible fear and resignation. That face broke Tom’s heart. Now and then.  
He remembered that when they got out of there, he didn’t want to let Harry out of sight. The first day after they came back Harry had put his arms around him and hugged him for a long time. When they let go there was a moment, just a moment, where it felt like Harry didn't want to let go either. Their eyes met. Then they both stepped away. At the time Tom had seen those emotions as natural reactions to a traumatic experience. They had shared so much and then they had almost lost each other. But as time passed on Voyager, he had slowly realized that need didn’t go away. The need to be close to Harry.  
Tom swiveled his chair again and got up. He walked to the replicator and ordered a large cup of coffee. He hadn’t really slept much anyway, since the time in the prison. He had been plagued with nightmares. One night he had woken up and realized that the person he most wanted to hold him wasn't there.  
After his experiences he had pushed everyone away. After that nightmare woke him up and he had understood that he wanted Harry to be there, he stepped back. Held his distance, while smiling. B’Elanna had seen through it. Maybe Harry had too. Maybe he saw what Tom tried to hide every time he looked at him. Maybe that was why Harry seemed to avoid him too. Sometimes their eyes had met in a meeting and Tom thought that all his thoughts where written in his eyes. All the confusion, everything unsaid, every hope, every fear where there on the tip of his tongue. Ready to be whispered as he dragged Harry closer.  
And then Harry looked away.  
B'Elanna had told him to figure out what he wanted. Two days until he had to return to Voyager.  
Tom continued watching the planet slowly go by below him.


End file.
